Carthage I begins with a full sized army.
All other armies begin with only 6 elements each.

Players on each side roll off to see who gets control of an army.
The highest roller gets army I, the second highest army II.

Carthage begins the game with the initiative.

The Turn Sequence

The game is divided into years.
Each year is divided into a Political Phase and an Activity Phase.

Political Phase.
Players separate into 2 groups, one of Romans and one of Carthaginians, and decide the nation's business for the coming year.

Allocate Resources.
Players take turns allocating the resources from the provinces owned by the nation.

Beginning with the player with the highest VP score and progressing in descending order through the player with the lowest VP score (roll off for ties), players take turns allocating the resources from one of the nation's provinces.
A player may do one of these things with the resources:

Add a point to his own VP score.

Add an element to an existing army that is not under siege, either from its reserve, or from the pool of allied elements available in the army's theater.

Continue this process until the resources from every province have been allocated.

Allocate Armies.
The player with the highest VP score on his side takes control of the army of his choice; this becomes army I.
The player with the second highest VP score gets control of the other army; this becomes army II.
A Roman player may not control the same army for two years in a row.

An army which retreats or fights a battle or siege forfeits its move for the season.

Some moves cause attrition; see the section on attrition below.
During the winter season, any army which is not in a friendly province containing a major or minor city suffers attrition before movement (and may suffer attrition again if it moves).

At the end of each seasonal turn, provinces automatically change hands if they are occupied by an enemy army and do not contain a besieged friendly army or major city.

Passing the initiative (E).
When it is time to pass the initiative, the side which won more battles this year gains the initiative for next year.
In a tie, the side that last had the initiative keeps it.

Movement

Movement is between neighboring provinces, along sea or mountain routes, or across open sea.
A move may be any distance, traced through adjacent provinces, but must end when:

The army crosses water;

The army contacts or crosses mountains;

The army enters a province containing an enemy army.

A move across water may either be via a sea route (the dotted blue lines on the map), or between any two coastal provinces across open sea.

When an army enters a province containing an enemy army, the enemy army must either:

Retreat, by making a move (as listed above) to a friendly province;

Stand siege;

Fight a battle.

When an army chooses to stand a siege rather than fight or retreat, the moving army must either starve it into submission (see Seiges below) or retreat.

If an army moves through a province containing a friendly army, the C-in-C of either army may give elements to the other army.
In such an exchange, neither core army nor allied contingent may exceed the maximum size or allowed composition.
Such an exchange may result in one army being disbanded.

If there are two friendly armies in the same province where a battle is to be fought, only one goes to the battlefield.
The army which arrived second may send up to half its elements as an allied contingent to help the first army.
If the first army is defeated and must retreat, the second army must also retreat.

Transalpine Gaul is a special wild province,
and cannot be owned by either side.
It is treated as a movement stop only.
It is also big, and an army there may attempt to avoid contact with an enemy army in the same province: both C-in-Cs dice off, and the winner gets his way (i.e., either an interception or a successful evasion, whichever he wanted).
If both armies wish to avoid contact or fight a battle, then the desired result is automatic.
An army which spends Winter there may treat it as a friendly minor city if it was the first army to arrive in the province.

Attrition.
An army suffers attrition if it does one of the following:

crosses a mountain route, a sea route, or open sea in Spring, Fall or Winter;

starts the Winter turn anywhere except a friendly province containing a major or minor city.

spends a turn in Transalpine Gaul, if it was the second or later army to enter the province.

The owner of the army rolls two dice, one black and one colored.
If the black die shows a 1, the army loses the number of elements shown on the colored die.
If the army was moving by open sea in a Winter turn, roll a second colored die and add them together.
Apply the following modifiers to the black die:

-1 if moving by open sea (i.e., not along a sea route)
-1 if Winter

Armies

Core Armies.
Each Roman or Carthaginian army is a standard 12-element army from the DBA book.
These are called core armies.

If playing with 7 or 8 players, expand the core armies to the following:

Allied contingents.
Roman and Carthaginian armies operating in different theaters may recruit allied contingents according to one of these lists.
Allied elements can be recruited during the Political Phase or by spending one talent of gold from the army's warchest during its move for each element it adds in the province it's in.

An allied contingent may never leave its own theater of operations, but simply disbands if the core army it is attached to leaves or is destroyed.

If one of the elements in an allied contingent is the general's element, and there are at least 3 allied elements in the army, all the allied elements must be in a separate command controlled by a player other than the C-in-C.

If the nation recruiting the allied contingent does not own any territories in the theater, it may not take more than 3 elements from the allied list.

Raising and Disbanding Armies.
A player may elect to use resources to raise a new army during a political phase.
Such an army comes with 6 free elements of the raising player's choice.
Further elements must be added through the normal process of the political phase.

New Roman armies can only be raised in Rome.
New Carthaginian armies can be raised in Carthage, Cartago Nova, or Sicily, but Carthage must own the province in which the army is raised.

An army may be voluntarily disbanded by its C-in-C when it is that army's turn to move.
The army marker is removed from the map and the army must be raised anew during a subsequent political phase.
Disbanding an army under siege counts as surrender, and the army is considered destroyed for VP purposes.

Victory Points

Each player has his own victory score, which is a total of these cumulative modifiers:
All players:+1 for looting an enemy camp.
+1 for each enemy element his troops destroy in battle.
+1 for destroying an enemy C-in-C element during battle.

Only while C-in-C:-2 for losing an army while C-in-C (i.e., the army is destroyed completely).
-1 for losing a battle or siege while C-in-C.
-1 for disbanding an army of 6 elements or more.
+1 for winning a battle or siege while C-in-C.
+1 for capturing a minor city while C-in-C.
+3 for capturing a major city while C-in-C.
A player's VP score can never be less than 0.

If Rome or Carthage falls during the game, the players on the winning side are all ranked ahead of the players on the losing side.
Players within a side are ranked according to VP score.

If the game ends without a clear victor, every player on the side that has more provinces gets the territory difference added to his VP score (e.g., if Rome has 14 provinces and Carthage has only 10, the Roman players each get +4 VP).

Fighting Battles.

Use the DBA 2.0 Big Battles rules to fight the battles, with the following changes:

Army Composition.
Each army is exactly the size determined by events during the game (6-18 elements).

Each army must be divided into 2-4 commands, and each player on a side must be given one of them.
The player in control of the army is C-in-C during any battles that army fights.
Each command must contain at least 3 elements, determined by the C-in-C.
Each player on a side must be given a command, if this is at all possible.
Players who are left out of a battle because their side has insufficient elements to make commands for them may elect to fight a minor war; see the rules on minor wars below.

If an allied general is present, he must command all allied elements in a separate command, and the allied command must be controlled by a player other than the C-in-C.
If no allied general is present, allied elements may be mixed into the army's other commands as the C-in-C sees fit.

Terrain.
Treat all BUAs as plain bad going without denizens, walls, or any special attributes.
The new DBA BUA rules since version 2.0 are cumbersome, imbalance the game, and slow down play unacceptably; the siege rules in this campaign game are sufficient to cover the effects of walled towns on the strategic game.
The BUAs in these campaign battles represent unfortified villages, hamlets, plantations, country estates, etc.

Terrain choices available are determined by theater, as listed in the table below.
Personally, I use pre-made terrain panels to speed up battle setup.

Theater

Compulsory
Features

Optional Features

Africa (Steppe)

Road

River, Rough, Road, BUA.

Iberia (Arable)

Steep Hills

River, Steep Hills, Gentle Hills, Woods, Road, Waterway, BUA.

Italy (Arable)

Gentle Hills

River, Steep Hills, Gentle Hills, Woods, Road, Waterway, BUA.

Greek - Sicily, Sardinia,
or Corsica (Hilly)

Steep Hills

River, Woods, Road, BUA.

Dicing.
Dice are allocated as the C-in-C sees fit each time they are rolled; there is no requirement that any command get high or low die every turn.

Commands whose generals are out of command range (1200p or 600p beyond terrain) must have dice of a different color just like allied commands.

March Moves. All elements are allowed to march move.
A march move may not come closer than 300p to enemy elements, except:

Warbands may end their second move (i.e., the first march move) in contact, overlap, or rear support;

Psiloi may end any march move in the first bound in contact, overlap, or rear support.

Retreat.
A command may be voluntarily demoralized by its commander if the player wishes to (or is ordered to) retreat.
Voluntarily demoralized elements act just like other demoralized elements, fleeing toward the rear of the table, requiring PIPs to be held, etc.

Campaign effects

Defeat.
When an army is defeated, it must retreat to a neighboring friendly province.
If it cannot do so, it is destroyed.
If it must cross a sea or mountain route to retreat, it must dice for attrition just like an army which voluntarily moves that way.
Armies may retreat via sea route, mountain route, or normal route, but may not retreat via open sea.

C-in-C death during battle.
If the C-in-C element of an army is killed in the battle, roll a die and look up the result:

1-4: The general survives the battle, but the player loses 1 VP of lost face.
5-6: The general dies; the player must immediately give control of the army to another player on his side.

Sieges.

A siege results when an army elects to stand siege instead of fighting a battle, or when an army enters an enemy province containing a major city.

The besieging player and the besieged player each roll a die.
If the besieger's die is double that of the besieged, the siege is over, the defending army (if there is one) is destroyed, and the besieger wins.
Otherwise, each army present loses an element and the siege continues next turn.

The besieged player gets a +2 if he has only an army present, +3 if there is a major city in the province, or a +4 if he has both an army and a major city.

The besieging player gets a +1 for each seasonal turn the siege has lasted.

The besieged player may elect to end the siege any turn, by bringing the besieged army out to fight a battle.
This is done when it is the besieged army's turn to move.

Minor Wars.

If a regular campaign battle being fought can't fit all the players available on one or both sides, the player(s) left out may elect to fight a minor war.
A minor war represents an armed insurrection or decisive action in a small side war that occurs as a result of pressures from the Punic War taking place.
The results of a minor war are assumed to be irrelevant to the outcome of the Punic War, so are ignored for campaign purposes.
It's main purpose in game terms is to keep the players occupied, and give them a chance to earn battle-related VPs during a round in which a battle is being fought. (It is even theoretically possible to win the game fighting only minor wars, though it would be pretty unlikely...)

If there is only one player left out of a campaign battle and he elects to fight a minor war, the player on the opposite side with the lowest VP score (who is not also C-in-C in a current campaign battle) must give up his position in a campaign battle and fight the minor war with him.
Otherwise, it is permissable for two players on the same side to fight on opposite sides of a minor war.

The player initiating the minor war chooses an army off the left column of the table below; his C-in-C opponent chooses an army from the right column in the same row.
Both players fight a battle according to the DBA Big Battle rules with the modifications listed above.
Both armies are standard 12-element DBA armies with options chosen from the army list.